Vernon Dahmer

Vernon Dahmer (10 March 1908-10 January 1966) was a leader in the Civil Rights movement and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He led voter registration drives in his state during the 1960s, and he kept a voter registration book in his grocery store to make it easier for blacks to register. In 1966, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan threw gas jugs through his house's windows, and Dahmer died in the hospital from burns to his lungs and from smoke inhalation.